The Next Best Thing by Kris­tan Hig­gins (HQN 2010) is a paper­back, 400 pages, con­tem­po­rary romance. This review was writ­ten by fel­low reader, Senetra.

*****

Kris­tan Hig­gins’ The Next Best Thing fea­tures pas­try chef Lucy Lang Mirabelli, who has been wid­owed for almost five years. Her hus­band Jimmy, also a chef, died in a single-car acci­dent fol­low­ing a trade show, and she has been unable to eat her own desserts since then, instead fill­ing her need for sweets with Host­ess cup­cakes and Twinkies.

She has also never been able to visit his grave. With the birth of her niece, Lucy real­izes that she wants to have a fam­ily, but she doesn’t want to risk lov­ing and los­ing some­one again. This is mostly due to the women in Lucy’s fam­ily (her mother and three aunts) hav­ing a his­tory of becom­ing wid­ows at young ages. Corinne, Lucy’s sis­ter also lives in dread of join­ing their club, to the detri­ment of her marriage.

After mak­ing the deci­sion that she is ready to remarry, Lucy informs Ethan, her best friend, brother-in-law, and friend with ben­e­fits, that they can no longer sleep together and the rea­son why. Ethan has been her rock since Jimmy’s death, and Lucy val­ues his friend­ship. She spent her child­hood miss­ing her dad and wish­ing that her mother would remarry, and part of her hap­pi­ness with Jimmy came from being part of a fam­ily with a liv­ing father.

Fear of his death has her hold­ing Ethan at arm’s length and deny­ing her feel­ings for him. After some bad dates, and a pre­scrip­tion for anti-anxiety meds, Ethan con­vinces Lucy to try dat­ing him, but she wants their rela­tion­ship to remain a secret for a while.

The mixed reac­tions of their fam­ily and friends; the entrance of a Jimmy looka­like; and Lucy’s attempts to fig­ure out who she is now, and who she wants to be add to her stress. Some unwanted con­fronta­tions lead to rev­e­la­tions about Lucy, Jimmy, Ethan, and their rela­tion­ships that finally allow Lucy to move on.

This is the third Kris­tan Hig­gins book that I have tried, and the first one I have read from start to fin­ish. The other books started with a bang, then as the plot seemed to slow in the mid­dle, I lost inter­est. I can’t leave a book unread, so I skipped to the last few chap­ters to see how every­thing came out in the wash.

The premise really intrigued me, so I decided to try it, even though my pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences with Hig­gins were not so great. When I started this book, I already knew that the hero­ine would tell her own story, have an ani­mal, and encounter a Mr. Could Be the Hero But Isn’t. What I didn’t expect with the emo­tion that I felt while reading.

I felt an almost over­whelm­ing sad­ness for all of the char­ac­ters: The Black Wid­ows who (hap­pily or not) clung to mem­o­ries of their dead hus­bands; Cap­tain Bob pin­ing for Daisy; Corinne’s fears for her hus­band; Gianni and Marie’s loss; and Lucy, Jimmy, and Ethan. They all seemed to be stuck in sit­u­a­tions that that they either could not, did not want, or know how to change.

This was a com­plete turn­around from what I remem­ber from the pre­vi­ous books I read, and I kept read­ing with­out skip­ping any parts because I needed to see how Lucy came to her HEA. This was hard going for me as a romance reader, and while I enjoyed most of the char­ac­ters, I can’t say that I really enjoyed their jour­ney. Grade: C+